Robert Zemeckis has signed a bunch of new stars for his upcoming performance capture digital 3-D adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Robert Zemeckis revealed in the official Beowulf podcast that Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth and Gary Oldman have officially joined the cast. Robin Wright Penn also announced that she will also be involved in the project.
Hoskins, who will play Mr. Fezziwig, inadvertently and prematurely announced his involvement in the project before Zemeckis had made an official announcement, which I think pissed off some higher ups. And when the project was announced the studio denied that any deal had yet been made with him. But this is the first official confirmation of his involvement.
What we already know: Zemeckis wrote the script specifically for Jim Carrey, who stars as four different characters: Ebenezer Scrooge (at various different ages), the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Future. Tom Hanks (Bob Cratchit), Christopher Lloyd (Marley’s Ghost) and Michael J. Fox (Tiny Tim) are also rumored to be involved in the film, but have yet to be officially confirmed.
And before you ask, I’m not sure if the teaser movie poster to the upper right is legit or fan made. The art makes me believe it’s legit, the lettering makes me think it might be a fan creation.
While I see the potential of performance capture technology, and admire Zemeckis for pioneering the new form of filmmaking, I’m still not sold on the result thus far. The animation feels stiff, the people look like zombies, and the action looks like a highly rendered video game cut scene. And while I loved Beowulf for the 3D, I totally don’t understand why someone would create a character (Angelina Jolie for instance) who looks exactly like the real actor. Doesn’t that negate most of the benefits of the technology?
In Beowulf, I found Ray Winstone and Chrispin Glover’s (who played Grendal) performances to be the most interesting. Maybe because the animators didn’t have to concern themselves with making the animated characters look and move exactly like the performance captured actors. After all, animation is all about exaggeration of movements, and that’s why it works.
Anyway, my point is that the performance capture technology has yet to deliver a product that couldn’t have been made faster, cheaper and better looking using traditional film methods. I think something like James Cameron’s Avatar might accomplish this feat. And while I like the gimmick of Jim Carrey playing four characters, one of the characters at different ages (taking full advantage of the technology), the rest of the book is mostly talking and walking. And while I’ll anxiously await anything Zemeckis will ever create, I just wish he would pick some more visual and cinematic stories for this new format.
A Christmas Carol will hit theaters on November 6th, 2009.
via: ComingSoon
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:06 am
There’s just about the same amount of walk-and-talk in Christmas Carol than, say, the script for Cloverfield. A lot less giant monsterism, sure, but about the same amount of gab-and-stroll.
And there’s far more sit-and-talk in Zodiac than in Christmas Carol too.
This is a deeply cinematic story, I believe, and I have every confidence that Zemeckis will render it in splendidly cinematic terms.
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:20 am
I agree with the previous post. Zemeckis’ choice to adapt A Christmas Carol suggests something very cinematic in the works. I am reading Dickens’ novella again at present and keep imagining the RZ version based on the rich descriptions of events in the source material.
And also, hasn’t Zemeckis made spins on A Christmas Carol before in some ways: consider Back to the Future Part 2 and The Polar Express.
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:57 pm
I’m growing increasingly weary of people referring to this style of filmmaking as “animation” or the characters as “animated.” Motion capture is more technical special effect, than imaginative animation. There are NO character animators involved in 95% of what ends up onscreen in a film like Beowulf. I’m not denigrating what it is, just clarifying what it isn’t. An “animated” film should refer to the CHARACTERS being animated — to the performance being imagined and created by artists, not realized via the transfer of data from live actors on a mo-cap stage. Moreover, the artistic philosophy between the two different styles couldn’t be more pronounced: the mo-cap film is doggedly trying to reproduce realistic physics and motion while the “animated” film is purposefully ignoring, deconstructing, or hyper-realizing the laws of motion — striving to distill things to their essence in order to achieve a more compelling and fascinating quality of movement.
I’m disturbed that a film like Beowulf is being proposed - in some circles - as an Oscar nominee in the animation category. It just doesn’t belong there with films like Ratatouille. Apples and oranges, dammit, apples and oranges!!!
OK, I feel better now.
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Good point. Beowulf is not technically and animated feature and shouldn’t be qualified for an oscar. Not that it would win anyway. Who are we kidding here guys? Rattatoullie is a lock and we all know it.
December 4th, 2007 at 7:05 am
Zemeckis hasn’t yet leaped over the “uncanny valley” with his mo-cap technology. Beowulf is still just a nice demo; something like an extended PS3 cut scene.
Jim Carrey desperately needs a hit movie. Is this it? I don’t know.
December 4th, 2007 at 7:13 am
Absolutely - performance capture is performance capture, not animation in the sense we understand as creating motion from something inanimate. To Zemeckis’ credit, he too has acknowledged that performance capture c is not animation but rather its own technique and that to call it as such does a disservice to the art and craft of the animator.
February 21st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
This is a great cast. I just heard that there are six kids in the movie too. The girl from Pusing Daisy’s and the Verizon Fios kid and also Sage Ryan (the boy from America’s got talent). Can’t wait to see it.